History
BA Major, Minor
History provides the context for how ideas lead to actions and events that you might have seen coming—if you only knew the history.
Students studying history at Emory become rigorously independent thinkers who analyze information to reveal the micro and macro impact of past, present, and potential forces. Whether your future is in academia, innovative commerce, or transformative leadership, history is a great place to start.
Outcomes
A degree in history provides a foundation that can open doors to many different career paths. Obvious choices include historian, librarian, archivist, and museum curator. But research, writing, and analytical skills also make history majors ideally suited to pursue careers in law, to become authors or journalists or political scientists, to enter the corporate environment, or take on public service.
Recent Emory graduates work at Triage Consulting Group, Sotheby’s, Maxim Group, Paradigm Talent Agency, Teach for America, and the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship.
They have also gone on to pursue advanced degrees at such institutions as University of Virginia, Carnegie Mellon/University of Bologna, Freie Universitat Berlin, and Vanderbilt.
Examples of Classes
Oral History: Engaging with Live Sources
History students at Oxford College visit the Atlanta History Center’s “Atlanta Voices” Exhibit or the Center for Civil and Human Rights to examine oral histories and understand the impact of listening and hearing in the shaping of public history.
History Now
Examine current headlines through the lens of history in a way transcends names and dates and gets at the underlying context driving the course of events.
Politics and Paranoia: Conspiracism and the Making of Modern America
Explore how conspiracy theories ranging from Communist plots to Beatle mania have shaped today’s world, using the work of historians, sociologists, filmmakers, novelists, and political scientists.
Internships
Hands-on Experience
At Emory, history majors can take one elective in the form of an internship that makes a genuine contribution to their education in history. In recent years, students have interned at such places as the Atlanta History Center, Carter Center, Martin Luther King, Jr. Center, Oakland Cemetery, and the National Park Service.
Joe Crespino Jimmy Carter Professor of American History“We help students learn to approach sensitive topics with dispassion and objectivity, which is not to say neutrality. We work to check personal politics at the classroom door in the pursuit of greater knowledge, insight, and wisdom about America's political past.”